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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23350825">The Last Savior</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardskelling/pseuds/ardskelling'>ardskelling</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>No Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:48:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,296</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23350825</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardskelling/pseuds/ardskelling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world, broken and ravaged by deadly sin, where war and strife wreak havoc on every corner of the map, Senyla Arenni struggles to find herself in the bleakness of her life. She is a broken and caged creature, her heart's fire stamped out by oppression and sorrow. Life is short and hard living life under her Kaedic overlords and she struggles with a harrowing truth that only she can hope to uncover. This is an age of damnation and betrayal and young Senyla is the only one who can stop the end from claiming her so soon.</p>
<p>~~~I own The Last Savior and all characters mentioned~~~</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello there! This is my first real story that I hope to make into a video game someday. I have worked on this and fleshed out the entire story and the world's lore alone over the past several years. I ask only for feedback and friendly criticism so I may know how to change things in the future. I hope you enjoy and thank you for reading!</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In a world, broken and ravaged by deadly sin, where war and strife wreak havoc on every corner of the map, Senyla Arenni struggles to find herself in the bleakness of her life. She is a broken and caged creature, her heart's fire stamped out by oppression and sorrow. Life is short and hard living life under her Kaedic overlords and she struggles with a harrowing truth that only she can hope to uncover. This is an age of damnation and betrayal and young Senyla is the only one who can stop the end from claiming her so soon.</p><p>~~~I own The Last Savior and all characters mentioned~~~</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello there! This is my first real story that I hope to make into a video game someday. I have worked on this and fleshed out the entire story and the world's lore alone over the past several years. I ask only for feedback and friendly criticism so I may know how to change things in the future. I hope you enjoy and thank you for reading!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The light was pale and grey, on that cold morning. It leaked through the crooked wooden beams of the wagon, a poor day to die. The air was thick with the smell of overnight rain that had poured down upon muddied trails and the salt scented winds were bitter on her tongue, kissed with winter’s woe.  The cold bit like sharpened steel upon her, gnashing teeth and delving ice. Though they were huddled together like a pack of starved dogs, no warmth passed between their filthy, beaten and bloodied bodies. The trail was rough and rocky and as the wagon had shifted and swayed with each jarred movement, her stomach lurched, empty and full of bile. She had nearly bitten off her own tongue trying to moisten her chapped lips, her skin dried out and wind-whipped. Her head was in a constant and splitting pain, her mind threatening to unravel after hours and hours of turmoil. It was a sharp ache that lived and pounded behind her eyes, like a dreadful heartbeat ever thundering. Her pulse quickened, a wicked crack of a whip in her ears. Just a horse. They whipped the horse. The thought turned to one of pained realization, blanketing heavy over her shoulders as she remembered why she was here. They were to die, all of them. These men and women and children were to be killed. They were to be hauled off to their deaths, with nothing but cold, unforgiving ground to drink in their blood, their desecrated corpses pushed into mass graves. She could not recall how many she had seen now, who had fallen out of the wagon or fell to the ground, weak and weary from walking. Their heads lay in a gruesome collection, far, far behind them. All these stories were true about these Witch-Elves, the Kaed and their cruelty. They were beautiful people, on the outside, like they were cut from the swath of heaven’s finest cloth. Perfect faces in the beginning, yes, yet they twisted with cold malice, at the utterance of a curse, the drop of a supply crate. They had lithe and masterfully sculpted bodies that were only trained to beat with knouts and cut down people who failed to move fast enough for them. They were their overseers, and for many long and arduous years, the people of Sorrelyn had been at their mercy.</p><p> The cruel and tyrannical elves had come in from the sea with steel in their hands and fire in their eyes. They were conquerors, her father had once said. And what they had done to her home before she was even born, was just that. The immeasurable pain and suffering they had caused was never forgotten by the simple village folk. For weeks, the holy elven knights of grand and mighty Aeratia had held out. And still, they all had been butchered, left unburied, defamed and doomed to be forgotten, not allowed to return to the heavens with their God. The blood of a people who simply wished to protect and preserve their culture, their homes, their very lives had watered the soil they stood upon. The white fire of Kaedic soldiers arced in the black expanse of the night sky. Mighty, valiant dragons were brought down from the skies they loved so dearly and their keep, Avantisi Rythim, the Keep of the Scaled-Ones, was sundered in just a few short hours. The king of the Kaed, Mythilyr, the Black One, had used his terrifying magic to bring the keep to the ground, stones sundered, barriers cracked, lives lost within the expanse of its rubble. His sheer and terrifying power had brought Aeratia to its knees and set the entire kingdom in a vast, long-living twilight. The warrior sons of Sorrelyn, those who had wives and husbands and children to return home to, were captured and executed by the Kaed, their heads placed on their own spears and erected around the town, as a grim reminder of what will happen to their children, should the people of that pathetic, wasted land forget who their true masters were. And to the east, on the land they had so ruthlessly, mercilessly stolen, did the Kaed make their kingdom. They erected a beautiful and glittering castle, made of crystal and of stone, that one can surely see for many long miles. Their kingdom is an insult to those that died that fateful day, when brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, parents and children had been forever stolen, their lives mere adornments on the walls of that strong and resilient keep that stood for centuries.</p><p>	Senyla Arenni looked out from those cracked wagon walls, into the light that would be her last ever sunrise. Bleak, grey and murky, the sun’s beauty was masked by a cruel darkness. It was sickening, that she would die here, at the hands of these terrible monsters, who sought total damnation over all else. The wagon would halt soon, and the people here with her, whose faces she did not recognize, whose names she did not know, all would die here with her. She would not even get to die with her mother or father, for their bodies likely bled out on the icy and rugged ground far, far behind them, in the ruins of the only place she had to call home. She sent a prayer to whatever Gods or Goddesses dared to listen, that their souls could find peace with their makers, that their tears and cries for help would not linger with them for so long. Her teary, blood-shot eyes turned to her feet, where the shackles lay, iron clamped around tight against her ankles. Blood and gnarled skin crested the rusted irons like grisly adornment, and she tried to ignore the pain that shot up her legs at the slightest movement. Senyla tried to keep her eyes down and the pitiful, miserable people around her had slowly found their eyes widening, all bound together in irons and chains. Those men and women and children, dirtied and grim, bloodied with the torture their captors unleashed upon them, all froze, eyes widening with fear. The wagon halted. Death was coming. None of them truly knew how long they had waited in that cart, the splinters and rusted nails and the scent of fear and blood was enough to keep all of them occupied. She began praying, without really registering the ancient verse-hymns that came from her mouth. Whispering, voice shaky and thick with exhaustion from the icy sea-wind that pierced her lungs, from the bloody shackles on her wrists, from the trauma she had been put through, she prayed.</p><p>Misery. Misery and depression is what had befallen these people of Sorrelyn. The Kaed had beaten and burned and broken them into submission years ago, simply none of their prisoners had fight left in them. Senyla looked at them, those she had no idea of who these people were, who shared her iron chains. Deep bags had been made under their eyes, from lack of sleep or from crying. And for the first time in a very long while, the Elven girl began to cry. Tears ran rivers down muddied cheeks, as if a thousand years of pain and suffering had finally broken her.  This world was so very cruel to those who had no sword, no nourishing fire to cleanse with,  no voice to unite with a war-cry. Those who were strong enough to wield a sword, who were lucky enough to have mana in their veins to fight with spells, who were bold enough to rise against oppressors, were those she did not know. For in this wagon of weary people, eyes dulled from tears shed in the dim morning, bodies wracked with sickness and cheeks gaunt with famine, had long since lost their kindling.</p><p>	Not one of them could expect what happened next. It seemed that Mother Sun who sat in her throne in the heavens, although her warmth and radiant sunshine had been masked by the grey swirling clouds above, had been ripped from the sky. And then, the screaming began, foreign accents shouting in a foreign tongue. The smell of acrid smoke had pushed itself deep into her lungs, knocking the cold wind aside to breathe in a hateful and strongly burning fire. A deep, thundering roar and a flare of fire had all but ripped apart the wagon, its host of soldiers and those that were held in the back of it. Senyla, and the sorry villagers who shared the wagon with her, all vaulted forward. The wagon was tumbling, knocked down from the force of whatever waged a battle outside. Her head had flung forth, onto the bench opposite of her and pain erupted in her skull, causing an already painful headache to explode into complete and utter agony. She had no time to register what was happening before her vision went black.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. From Smouldering Ash</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The sun had risen over the horizon at dawn. Birds flew above and some perched on trees that had lost their leaves weeks ago. The wind was cold, somewhat refreshing to breathe in, and rushed from the north, taking the briny smell of the sea with it. Senyla had awoken with a start that morning, her dreams lingering in her mind, a scream kept caged behind her teeth. Another nightmare again. This happened often. Senyla could remember them with vivid detail. Her dreams, the recurring nightmare, was horrifying. It started with a black void, and then a woman floating amidst the inky black. Then a beast with wings as black as pitch leaping forth to eat the sun and fire, as white and as beautiful as polished quartz burned a path across the entire world. Her parents had waved it off many times over breakfast, too tired from their work to entertain the ramblings of a child. At that point, she had stopped talking about it, keeping the horrible dreams to herself. There were times, where instead, she asked for stories of her parents, where they came from and why they chose to come here, to this place of hard labor and misery. They had dismissed that as well, preferring to stick to the same story each time she tried to ask. ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>We had always lived in this place.</span>
  </em>
  <span>`  She knew it was false, the elves in this land were not very tall, had fair skin with a slightly darker complexion, and never once had she seen an Aeretian elf with hair as white as moonlight. Her parents were very tall, her father standing taller than the elves that had ancestral ties to Aeratia, with eyes as blue as the ocean’s water and hair as light as snow. But she knew better than to question her parents, the one time she did that, the one time she called the both of them liars, was the one and only time her mother had introduced her to a branch. She learned then not to talk back to either of her parents, finding it preferable to be meek and careful-choosing with her words.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The pleasant morning light leaked through frosted over windows, the simple fabric of her drapes tied back to the wall. Her mother must have come in earlier to tie the drapes up, a routine she did every morning before making breakfast. She rose from her bed slowly, the sudden rush of nausea threatening to send her running for the chamber pot. Pale, freckled feet met the cold wooden floor of her bedroom, and she stood, hand on her blankets for support. Groggily, she made her way to the door and opened it, spotting her mother in the kitchen, stirring a pot full of sweet smelling porridge. She dished it into bowls, gracefully, and set them onto the table. Three, odd, because normally her brother would be here, waiting at the table for his meal. Stepping out into the warmth of the kitchen area, she spoke, wiping the sleep from her eyes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Mama? Where is Sadron?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her mother looked up from where she worked on setting down a water pitcher, silvery eyes nearly glowing in the candlelight from the table. The wedding band on her index finger twinkled in the amber glow, tiny scrawlings in a language she was never able to read glinted with it. And she spoke. Senyla loved her mother’s voice, it was always so soft and so melodic, the slightest of accents graced the Common Tongue she spoke.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He had to work at the docks early, little one.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And her mother left it at that, saying no more of it. Senyla found it odd that her mother said no more of it, but the flicker of grimness in her eyes made her hush immediately. Instead, she sat down at the heavy oaken table, dipping her spoon into the porridge. She brought the spoon to her lips, the cold iron heating from the warmth in the bowl, pieces of diced fruit in the mix of grains. She took it in and smiled, her favorite. Apple and cinnamon on her tongue, hearty and warm. It was just perfect. And her mother’s lips even curled into a gentle smile, the small scar on the left side of her lips stretching some with it. It made the Elven woman’s daughter happy, to know that her mother still found it in herself to know how to smile, when everyone around her had seemed to forget how to do so, in their desolate misery. She ate, in silence, her mother sipping her tea as her gaze drifted to the back door. It opened and her father came into the room, axe in hand. Sweat glistened on his brow and a bundle of firewood was held under his arm. His tunic was frayed and worn, drenched in sweat that came from his daily activities. He gave his daughter a smile, kneeling down to set his wood before the cooking pot.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Good morning, Senyla. Did you sleep well?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This was how all her mornings were, a moment of peace she was able to scrounge up before she went to hard and back-breaking work. She gave a nod, working through a mouthful of sweetened oats. Her father, a surly and strong man, gave a smile and a nod back to her. Her father was, at a glance, a very intimidating man. He stood tall, well over six feet, with muscles and filigree tattoos on his arm and snaking up his neck. His hair was bound with a leather strap, long silver locks pulled back out of his perfect face and his blue eyes always looked stern. Yet with her he was gentle and loving, and to her, he was the greatest of fathers. Arithil Arenni was his name, and the gentle woman beside him was the loving and kind Selaine Arenni, her mother. Though years of hard work under Kaedic supervision had aged them and worn their bodies down, their love for each other and the children they raised never diminished. Senyla was snapped out of her reverie then as a horn cried out into the early dawn, signalling the time for work to start. The young girl frowned. She did not have time to finish her breakfast. But her mother gave a little sigh and pressed a hand to her shoulder.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll have a big lunch waiting for you when you get your break, sweetheart.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was not </span>
  <em>
    <span>fair</span>
  </em>
  <span>. These people dictated how they lived, how long they had to eat, how long they slept and how long they lived their lives. When would it end? It was not </span>
  <em>
    <span>fair</span>
  </em>
  <span>. That one phrase made anger burrow through her and settle into her gut. Not fair. These Kaed were monsters. They deserved to be pushed back. They deserved to </span>
  <em>
    <span>die </span>
  </em>
  <span>for the pain and suffering they had caused to her neighbors. Rage pressed its claws into her mind, her eyes screwed shut and her mind became fogged. She had no time to register what she was doing until ice coated her spoon and her bowl and eventually part of the table. It had shot out from her fingertips and grew upon the surface like little needles. It gleamed in the light and shrunk back as her eyes widened. The ice melted instantly as Senyla gasped, her eyes widening in fear. What had she done? Her gaze remained fixed on the still-wet wood, dotted with tiny, sparkling droplets, not daring to look up at her parents. The two of them stayed silent, as if time itself had been halted. But time walked still, because her mother’s hand tightened slightly on the back of her tunic. Senyla did not speak, did not move, even as her mother tried to reassure her with that softly-spoken voice. But her delicately pointed ears could pick up nothing but a rush of power, it thrummed behind her ears as potent as her own singing blood.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Senyla, darling...There is nothing wrong with this. It is a gift.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She tried, actually tried to lift her hand to calm the ice that pressed hard against her fingertips, the frost-song that sang in her blood, an alluring siren song. She could not focus, could not hear her parents speak. Frost was inside of her, it pressed in her hands, ice coated her tongue but what snapped her out of her trance-like prison was a scream. The sound of a hollered yell, in a foreign tongue brought her from the hazy storm that waged war on her mind. It was a young boy and Senyla immediately felt sympathy for whoever was at the post this time. The Kaed were quick to use a knout on whoever did not move fast enough, those who did not follow orders or those who simply dropped some of their precious cargo. Her mother’s eyes turned to the window, and widened. There was nothing in her eyes but fear in that moment. In the town square, a boy was being hauled up. The Kaed used little effort to pull him forth. Chains were around his wrists, around his ankles, Kaedic men leading him to a post that had been dug into the earth. And then, with an unnatural swiftness, her mother was out of the house, door flung wide open, running for the group. And her father only gave chase when he heard her sharp and cold voice, calling out into the bleak, winter morning. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Unhand my son!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This was wrong. So very wrong. Senyla’s gut twisted with knotting dread. No one talked to the Kaed like that, not unless they wanted conflict. It was a short and bloody conflict that ended up in the disturbing offender being chained up and beaten to a bloody pulp. Apparently, her brother had been one of those offenders. Her father looked back, before he followed his wife, only to say words she dreaded hearing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Stay here, Senyla.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And with those words, he left her there and closed the heavy door behind him. The whippings would start soon, while defenseless folk gathered to watch in horror. While the ice on the table melted, it waged a bitter storm from deep within her core, the very seat of her soul. She rose from her seat, damn her ice and its hold on her, damn what her father warned her of. Her brother would likely be whipped to death, for something miniscule. She had to see what could be done, to fight his wrongful fate. Out of the house she went and tucked herself away to the shadows.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The crack of a whip rang out into the misty day, followed by a choked grunt of a young man. He clutched at the post with a warrior’s grip, the first of the many lashes he would receive causing him to grit his teeth. There was a moment of time that passed, the Kaedic man in the shining armor wished for him to appreciate the powerful force behind that one lash and the shocked cries that came from the mouth of his mother had made him stay strong, just for her. Young Sadron did not cry out, he would not bend or break before this monster, he would not give him the satisfaction of letting the bastard hear his cry. Sadron met eyes with his mother, his brilliant and gentle hues of blue were unwavering, although a hefty portion of that unrelenting gaze was fueled by adrenaline and bravado. He felt the hot trickling of his own blood run down his back and willed himself to stare at the dirt below him, feeling the tears already pricking at the corners of his eyes. How many people did water this ground with their own life’s essence before him? It soured his stomach to think about the staggering amount that no doubt were bound and chained here like animals, not even days before he found himself kneeling in the dirt. He heard the next lash, before he felt it, yet, there were many heads that hissed before a cacophony of pain did cause him to lurch forward, his flesh stinging as it yielded to the bite of many teeth. His gaze turned to his right, where the regular, traditional whip was discarded and the man behind him flaunted a deadly, bloodied knout. He could not feel much of the pain from the first strike, the adrenaline in his blood taking the brunt of the trauma. But he turned his head, ignoring the glee in the eyes of the Kaedic brute, the rest of his face shadowed by his helm, just in time to have another wicked crack upon his fragile skin, bloody mist rising from his ravaged skin. Sadron could not hold in a cry any longer, bowing his head to the earth as he trembled. To add further cruelty onto the already destroyed back of the young elven worker, Sadron was pushed to the ground by a heavy boot, his very life staining the armored foot of his assailant.</span>
</p><p> </p><p><span>“<em>This</em>,” Called the soldier, motioning to Sadron’s crumpled form, spoke with a thick accent. His voice was booming, hung heavy over the heads of those forced to watch. “<em>This is what happens when dogs disobey!</em>”</span><span></span><br/>
<span><br/>
</span> <span>He ground his heel into the back of Sadron’s mangled form, the boy letting out a series of pained and begging whimpers, muffled and drowned out by the teeth that he had sunk into his arm. It seemed that the nameless soldier took a sick sort of pleasure in the torment he caused, lifting his foot, only to deliver a heavy kick to his abdomen, the thick-plated boot causing a hollowed thud from where it met his ribs. Sadron fell to the ground in a crumpled heap, and the man rose his hand, a snap sounding from his gloved hand. Two more soldiers had come from the formation, drawing the young man into their arms. He made little effort to escape, whether it was from the pain and all the energy it took to move or because he did not wish to receive another whipping, Senyla did not know. She only watched, broken and defeated, as her brother was hauled off to the back of their settlement, to be ‘taken to the infirmary’, a tall man had stated, once he had seen her gawking. The look in his eyes was a frail one, as if so many years had broken his spirit. And yet, he offered a gentle hand on her shoulder, to provide some form of comfort after seeing such a horrific incident. But the young elven girl shrugged him away, her dejected gaze turning to her parents, how they stuck out among those that gathered around them. Her mother had always been there for her, to greet her in the morning with a loving smile, or to kiss her hair at night before she slept. She cared for her day and night, was there to sing her to sleep, to ease her awake from her nightmares. Now Selaine needed her, now more than ever and she would provide what comfort she could.</span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her father stood above Selaine, a hand soothingly rubbing circles over her back, though Senyla could tell by the distantness in his eyes that he was burning away in his own skin, soon to turn all teeth and claws. His concern for his family was the only thing that held him back from murdering the Kaed that put a hand on his young boy. Her mother however was a grieving, crushed thing, who lay kneeling before the bloodied post, clutching at the fabric of a shirt, </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>shirt. She had made it with her own hands, and the Kaed left it there in the dirt, stained with droplets of red. Mute and broken from the horrors she had witnessed, Senyla ambled over to the, joining her mother upon the ground. Her fingers looped through hers, and Selaine’s fingers were as smooth and as pale as alabaster, perfect and flawless. She could have swore that she felt a flicker of </span>
  <em>
    <span>something </span>
  </em>
  <span>from the joining of hands. What it was, the young girl did not know. But it was just the slightest tug, from somewhere deep within her, something that just barely caressed the very seat of her soul with a pinprick of the strongest cold she ever felt. Her silver gaze turned to her mother, widening with an unasked question, and the silver hues that met hers were full of a quiet but undoubtedly burning rage. A single phrase was in her mind, though neither her mother’s mouth, nor her own moved. And still, she knew that it was her mother’s voice that spoke to her, even within the confines of her own sacred mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>We will make them <strong>pay</strong>. </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
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